NVM's mother writes:
“I am a certified hypnotherapist; in the late 1990s my son and I took a two-day
long train trip. During the ride he asked me to hypnotize
him, as if he were a client. I believe it's unethical to
hypnotize children, and he was only 14, so instead I
taught him how to relax his body by gently “allowing” it
to feel warm and heavy, progressively relaxing himself
from his feet to his head. Then I asked him to just tell me
about the pictures in his mind. The after-death
communications researcher and co-author of Hello
Heaven!, Bill Guggenheim, had suggested that if I ever
work with children I should use this simple non-
hypnotic technique.
I recorded the questions I asked, and the responses he gave, in my notebook, and once on a tape recorder. This book consists of those questions and answers, along with some illustrations my son drew later.
The stories in this little book have changed my
life. Having since specialized in investigative hypnosis,
I'm delighted that they have consistency and hang
together as a whole. When we took our train ride, I was
new in the field; my questions would be more formal
now but, perhaps, less interesting. My son’s answers to
my questions have given me a certainty about life and
the afterlife that I didn't quite yet have, even after all of
my own meetings with ghosts, and all of the many past
life regressions I've done, and the years I’ve spent
studying philosophy and theology.
For eleven years my son did not want me to share
these stories with anyone. I suppose he was
embarrassed. He's now ready to talk about them; he’s
happy to have me work on them, get them published,
and talk about them. He would even be happy for us to
use our real names, but I prefer to be more cautious, and
it was my decision to use his initials only. Perhaps this
little book is one reason that Dick, the Carrier Angel, is
here now.”